User and Market Research: The Same? Different?

Through Research, we strive to make decisions based on who our customers are, what keeps them up at night, what success means to them, and how these ideas align with our business strategy.

This deep understanding of our customers and prospects is what drives us to make the right business and product design decisions. Market and User Research are at the heart of understanding our customers. This pairing elevates the voice of our customers to achieve our business goals through providing products and services that our customers can’t live without.

Market research

• Identifies market size & share
• Often (but not always) tends to be Quantitative
• Gives us a broad generalizations about a population
• Is attitudinal in nature, captures “what they say”
• Used to inform broader company strategy
• Used to identify total addressable market for a product or service
• Quantifies the size of an opportunity space
• Relies are larger sample sizes
• Drives market segmentation
• Uncovers pricing attitudes
• Competitive analysis

User Research

• Identifies user behaviors, value perspectives and challenges
• Evaluates the user experience throughout the product life cycle
• Often(but not always) Qualitative
• Is behavioral in nature, captures “what they do”
• Used to test product/solution hypotheses
• Used to test the value and usability of a product
• Drives product maturation from early stage concept to production
• Often conducted with smaller sample sizes than market research
• Defines user goals
• Uncovers how users accomplish tasks today

Are the two mutually exclusive?

Absolutely NOT! The lines can be blurred at times. The secret to research success is when User Research & Market Research work closely together. You need both to be successful.